Now I enjoy a nice cold drink from my beer chiler as much as the next man but I never thought that there is such a thing as a World Beer Awards. I always thought that there is beer and there is lager but there were over 50 different types in the awards run in conjunction with Beers Of The World magazine.
It seems to work a bit like a dog show where you have different breeds, then best of breed and then best of the show. It has another similarity in that it must be very subjective as to which is best. After all, what I like you may not like and vice versa.
The first level of judging is in the style of beer section. There were 54 different style awards. A number of them were common ones which I recognise like standard pale ale, strong pale ale, standard lager and premium lager but some which caught my eyes are the flavoured specialities such as coffee beer and chocolate beer. Sometimes we have a cup of coffee after our beer but I never imagined that they would flavor beer like that.
There are then sixteen categories and those are whittled down to the five main awards which are:
World’s Best Lager
World’s Best Ale
World’s Best Stout/Porter
World’s Best Wheat Beer
World’s Best Specialty Beer
The awards were dominated by the European countries who won all five of these major groups. I am not sure whether this is because European beer is really the best or just because it is where it is held and there are not as many entrants from overseas countries.
Waldhaus Diplom Pils from Germany won the best lager award and also won the best premium and best pilsner categories. The World’s Best Ale was won by the English barley wine style, strong dark ale category of Robinson’s Old Tom.
The Russian Federation’s Baltika No6 Porter came top in the bock style in the strong lager category to win the overall best stout/porter award. The best wheat beer cam from Belgium and is the Brasserie du Bocq Blanche de Namur (now that does sound as much like a pedigree dog as a beer).
The English Dark Star Espresso which, as its name suggests, is flavoured with coffee, was the winner as the best specialty beer.
Well that was all very interesting. When I drift over to my beer chiller to get a cold can out, I shall think about them and wonder whether I will get to taste any of them and what might win next year.
